


Word of the Day

by ValBirch



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Dad Hopper, Gen, Rebellious Teenage El, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-29 00:49:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12619352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValBirch/pseuds/ValBirch
Summary: El loves words so Hopper finds her a dictionary and teaches her as best as he can, one word at a time.





	1. Loyalty

**Author's Note:**

> Hey folks! 
> 
> This is a series of connected one-shots the span the year Hopper and El spend together in the secret cabin. It's based on that scene where compromise is the word of the day. 
> 
> Basically, I asked people to send requests to my Tumblr (@elevenknope) for what they'd like to see as word of the day and I'm writing little drabbles to show how that word comes up and how El comes to understand it. I hope that makes sense. 
> 
> Anyhow, posting the first two together because I wrote them pretty close together. Enjoy. Please let me know what you think! I love hearing your thoughts.
> 
> Cheers,  
> Val

Frozen dinners were not at all satisfying after a long day cleaning and organizing the cabin and Jim, pushing his peas around on the cardboard tray, longed for a greasy cheeseburger and a strong coffee. Despite the power of that craving, he didn’t want to leave Eleven behind. Not yet; not on her second night here. He still felt uneasy, as though a team of soldiers could come busting through the door at any time. 

Eleven also seemed distracted tonight, more so than she had yesterday. But, Jim thought to himself, yesterday she had been wiped out with exhaustion and slept for a good fourteen hours. Hard to be distracted when you’re passed out. 

He watched over his fork as she poked at her food, drawing patterns in the lumpy gravy with her fork.

“Everything okay kid?” 

Eleven’s eyes shot up at him right away, wide and worried. He carefully softened his expression into a smile, knowing full-well he could look severe without meaning too. 

“Okay,” Eleven replied, parroting his term, nodding softly. 

“Doesn’t sound like it,” Jim said nonchalantly, knitting his eyebrows together at her. 

She looked thoughtful for a long moment, then sighed heavily. “Mike. I miss Mike.” 

Well, he should have guessed as much. Mike Wheeler had grown quietly rebellious in the last two months, an anger behind his eyes that Jim could never remember having seen before. 

“He misses you too,” Jim assured her. And as the words left his mouth, he had a thought that worried him. “Have you gone to see him?” 

Eleven frowned, lines drawn at the corners of her lips. “That night. After the Demogorgon. The bad men were there. They wanted me.” 

Jim’s heart skipped a beat. He had been there that night, at the Wheeler’s. Stopped by on his way home to check up on Mike. There had been no Lab officers there when he had arrived, but Karen and Ted were certain to tell him every last detail. 

“You were there?” Jim asked, wondering how on Earth she hadn’t been seen. From what he understood, there had been hired guns everywhere. 

“Yes.” Eleven nodded. “For Mike. It wasn’t safe for me to stay.” 

Jim pursed his lips, a pang of sorrow running through his chest at just how beyond her years Eleven really was. “You know,” he said, trying to comfort her, “That was a really good thing you did. You showed a lot of loyalty.” 

“Loyalty?” El asked, her tone piqued with curiosity, “What is loyalty?” 

Jim opened his mouth to reply, but midway through his thought had a much better idea. Abruptly, he pushed away from the table, feeling Eleven’s eyes burn into the back of his head as he crossed the room to the large bookcase in the corner. 

“Aha!” He made a noise of triumph in his throat, pulling a thick and dusty volume from the top shelf. 

“Book.” Eleven observed as he returned to the table, settling down opposite her once more. 

Jim nodded. “Yeah, book. Good. This is a special kind of book though.” He placed it down on the table, trying not to wince at the amount of dust the rose from its heavy front cover. “It’s a dictionary.” 

“Diction-ary?” she repeated, unsure. Again, Jim nodded as he slid the tome across the clothed surface of the table. 

“You can look up words you don’t know. And it will tell you their meaning. Like you said Mike used to do.” 

Eleven’s face lit up at that and she eagerly opened the book, its spine cracking loudly. Damn that thing was old. Jim made a mental note to buy a new one on his way home from work sometime this week. 

“So loyalty,” he continued, slightly surprised by the voracious and excited light in Eleven’s eye, “Starts with L. You have to go to the section with all the L-words.” He paused, suddenly unsure. “You know your letters, right? The alphabet?”

“Yes.” Eleven nodded solemnly. “A-B-Cs. The bad men taught me.” 

Jim wasn’t sure how to respond, but he was saved the trouble as Eleven flipped through the pages, proudly finding the beginning of the L-section. 

“Good stuff, kid,” he offered a word of praise. “Now, the next letter is O.” 

She picked up on the method of the dictionary quickly, her eyes lingering with wonder over all the words she could learn, but focused on finding one in particular. 

“Loyalty!” Eleven cried out, happily pointing to a spot midway down a stained and worn page. She narrowed her eyes and pressed her nose close to the book in a way that would have made Jim laugh if not for her earnestness. 

After a moment, she looked up, her expression suddenly frustrated. “I can’t read it.” 

“Hey, hey, hey,” Jim was quick to reply, noticing the way her bottom lip quivered, “No shame in that. You’ll learn. Let me take a look.” He held out his hand and waited for Eleven to slide the dictionary in his direction. 

“Alright, let’s see.” Jim cleared his throat. “Loyalty. A strong feeling of support.” He thought quickly, trying to figure out a sentence. “Eleven showed loyalty to her friends by protecting them.” 

Eyebrows raised, he looked up from the page to see her reaction. She was smiling, silent tears in her eyes. 

“El,” she mumbled quietly, “El showed loyalty to her friends by protecting them. I like that word.”

“It’s a good word,” Jim agreed, reaching out and ruffling her hair. “It’s a good word, El.” She narrowed her eyes at him, but couldn’t stop herself from smiling.


	2. Calories

Jim heard the final latch slide open with a satisfying click before the door to the cabin slowly swung inwards, the warm air welcome on his cold cheeks. February was always unrelentingly icy in Hawkins. Arms laden with colourful paper bags, Jim kicked off his boots, excited to share the special surprise he had brought home for El. 

“Hey kid!” He called out towards her closed bedroom door, “You hungry? I brought something special!”

Almost immediately, El’s door opened and she appeared, standing there with an open book in her hands, face lit with interest. 

“A surprise?” she asked, eyes focusing in on the bags he carried across the cabin.

“You bet,” Jim replied, setting down the take-out on their small kitchen table. “The best burgers in Hawkins.”

Whatever reaction he had been expecting it was not this one. El’s face suddenly fell into a deep frown and she shook her head. “Not hungry.” Quickly, she retreated into her bedroom, closing the door behind her. 

“El?” Jim was confused by her reaction. He thought she’d be bored of their repetitive dinners, television dinners that were somehow bland and oversalted at the same time. She had nearly jumped for joy when he had brought home that pizza earlier in the week. “El, you okay?” 

“No burgers.” El’s voice floated through the door, a little strained and wavering, as though she were trying not to cry. 

“Are you a vegetarian all of a sudden?” From his spot against her door, Jim tried to lighten the mood. He knocked gently on the old wooden surface. “You only eat vegetables now?” 

Jim heard some rustling on the other side of the door before it opened just a crack, one of El’s eyes—teary as he had suspected—glaring out at him, 

“Not veget—no,” she muttered, stumbling over her words. Then she paused, looking past him to the paper bags on the table with an unreadable expression “Benny.” 

He almost didn’t catch it, almost asked her to repeat what she had said, before he processed the name and his heart lurched. Of course. How could he have been so stupid? She had told him about Benny just a week ago and here he was bringing home burgers. 

“Shit, I’m sorry kid,” Jim shouldered his way into the room and opened his arms, offering a hug that El fell into, her face pressed into his chest. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” 

El sniffled for a few moments before she looked up at him with wide eyes, pulling away and crossing her arms. “Benny was my friend.” 

“I know,” Jim nodded. “He was my friend too. We went to school together. Like Mike goes to school with the other boys, you know?”

El nodded her understanding. 

“I always loved Benny’s food,” he continued, “He’d give me free burgers any time I stopped by—which was pretty damn often. It’s what gave me this—” grinning, Jim patted his stomach. El smirked and mimicked his gesture, poking him just under the ribs. 

“Now, those burgers out there,” Jim went on with a laugh, “They aren’t Benny’s. Nowhere near as good, but they’re the best Hawkins has right now. And I need your help to eat them because there’s way too many calories in those bags for me.”

“Calories?” El’s brow furrowed, the word new to her. 

“Yeah,” Jim replied, “That’ll be the word of the day. Calories. It’s like energy. Lots of science stuff. You can look it up once we’re done eating, okay?”

El considered it for a moment before nodding. “Okay.”


End file.
